Magnetic resonance phantoms are relatively-complex structures used to evaluate and/or calibrate magnetic resonance (MR) devices such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices. During a calibration/evaluation process, a phantom is inserted into a cylindrical measurement space within a MR device in order to perform a number of calibration and/or evaluation steps such as performing a gradient calibration, and/or measuring device resolution, gradient distortion/linearity, and slice gap and thickness.
In a common configuration, a MR phantom includes a cylindrical casing enclosing a fluid-filled chamber containing a number of phantom spatial features. For examples of MR phantoms having cylindrical casings see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,036,280, 5,888,555, 4,777,442, 4,719,406, 4,692,704, 4,618,826, and 4,613,819.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,276, Sierocuk et al. describe an NMR phantom including three mutually-orthogonal test plates, each configured to enable testing NMR scanner performance in each of the planes containing the plates. The plates are arranged to be simultaneously positionable at the isocenter of the NMR scanner to permit testing NMR scanner performance in each plane without repositioning the phantom.